Directs Centre to frame rehabilitation scheme for rescued children ‘Issue suitable notifications within two months to prohibit employment of children in circuses' Instances of children being forcefully detained, sometimes under extreme inhuman conditions The Supreme Court on Monday banned the employment of children in circuses and directed the Union government to take immediate steps to rescue those engaged in such employment. A Bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A.K. Patnaik, passing orders on a...

35 members to include Azad, Krishna Tirath The first meeting of reconstituted Board likely to be held in May last week The Board advises Centre on steps to prevent misuse of sex-selection techniques Concerned over the sharp decline in the child sex ratio as reflected in the provisional Census figures, the Centre has reconstituted the Central Supervisory Board set up under the Pre-conception & Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 (PC & PNDT Act). Chaired...

The battle against poverty and inequity can be won only if governments focus on the welfare of adolescents, says a UNICEF report. FINALLY, it has been recognised that adolescents constitute a very critical category in the overall battle against poverty and inequity. It is for this reason that the United Nations Children's Fund's (UNICEF) flagship report, “The State of the World's Children 2011”, focusses exclusively on adolescents and cautions against neglecting...

Budget 2011-12 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. THREE decades ago, in the early years of the Special Component Plan (SCP) for Scheduled Castes – very recently renamed inappropriately as Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) – Indira Gandhi on her return as Prime Minister wrote two historical D.O. letters dated March 12, 1980, one to Central Ministers and the other to State Chief Ministers, regarding the SCP in the Central...

The four years of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) have shown that it is possible to fight all forms of violence against children including child labour, corporal punishment, child abuse and discrimination. Speaking at the fourth foundation day celebrations here on Saturday, NCPCR chairperson Shantha Sinha said moving away from a welfare approach to a rights-based perspective had been the first important step. “To actualise rights of...